Trump orders release of secret files on aliens and UFOs
United States Donald Trump has announced he is directing the defense department and other agencies to release whatever files they have on the search for alien life.
In a post on his social media platform, Trump said that he will ask the defense secretary and others “to begin the process of identifying and releasing Government files related to alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), and unidentified flying objects (UFOs and any and all other information connected to these highly complex, but extremely interesting and important, matters.”
Last week, former president Barack Obama was asked by podcast host Brian Tyler Cohen if aliens are “real.”
‘They’re real, but I haven’t seen them,” Obama responded. “And they’re not being kept in, what is it? Area 51. There’s no underground facility, unless there’s this enormous conspiracy and they hid it from the president of the United States.”
Obama clarified that he had not seen evidence that aliens “have made contact with us,” but said, “statistically, the universe is so vast that the odds are good there’s life out there.”
Trump oon Thursday accused Obama of disclosing “classified information”. The president told reporters aboard Air Force One, “I don’t know if they’re real or not,” and said of Obama, “I may get him out of trouble by declassifying.”
Trump told reporters that when it came to the prospect of extraterrestrial visitors: “I don’t have an opinion on it. I never talk about it. A lot of people do. A lot of people believe it.”
Public interest in UFOs and the possibility of the government hiding secrets of extraterrestrial life re-emerged after a group of former Pentagon and government officials leaked Navy videos of unknown objects to US media in 2017.
The renewed scrutiny prompted Congress to hold the first hearings on UFOs in 50 years in May 2022, though officials said that the objects, which appeared to be green triangles floating above a Navy ship, were likely drones.
The Pentagon has promised more transparency on the topic. The information that has been made public shows that the vast majority of UFO reports made by the military go unsolved.